Showing all newswire headlines

"Microsoft's move to sidestep the OASIS OpenDocument format (ODF) standard by making its own standards submission to the European ECMA standards body appears to contain 'bizarre restrictions' and are designed to give Microsoft 'complete control by tying products' together, IBM's standards chief said in an interview Friday."

Thanks to henke54

The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the last release candidate for the forthcoming Firebird 1.5.3 final version. Release Candidate 3 is available for download and testing.

" Alex Martelli stated on the thread: I don't think there was any official announcement, but it's true -- he sits about 15 meters away from me;-). I'm happy and excited for Guido. I'm interested to hear what exactly he'll be working on over there and how this could impact Python. Maybe it's my optimism kicking in, but I expect it will be positive for the community. I'm sure people can point to an incident here or there where Google has been questionable in its "don't be evil" motto, but I believe that overall, they're doing a good job of maintaining credibility. Anyway, congrats, Guido!" http://www.tweakers.net/nieuws/40494

Almost a month after rumors started trickling in that Mozilla would use independent film-makers to promote the next generation of Firefox, its free web browser, Mozilla has confirmed that it would indeed engage in this online "open source marketing" drive.

Mozilla formally announced the opening of the "Firefox Flicks Ad Contest" which calls upon professional, student and aspiring film-makers to join the growing community of Firefox contributors to create innovative, broadcast-quality 30-second commercials for Firefox. The ads will be judged by a star-studded panel of luminaries drawn from the film, television and advertising industries, with great prizes up for grabs. The winning ads will also be considered for inclusion in global marketing campaigns for Firefox.

This article describes how to build a Linux-based telephone answering machine using a low cost winmodem (softmodem) for the telephone interface. We describe how to install the drivers and libraries, and how to select and install the proper modem card. Our answering machine program is a couple of hundred lines of C code in a single file. If you've ever used a telephone you should have no trouble understanding the code.

[Ed: It's kind of geeky to setup, and uses a Command-Line Interface, but even a non-geek can type play filename.ul. Maybe someone will add a GUI front-end? - dcparris]

NetBeans Profiler Provides Tighter Control During the Development Process; Supports Java SE 5 Applications on Leading Platforms Including New Support for Mac OS X

Competitors feeling the heat as Microsoft overwhelms their markets just don't get it. Microsoft is fleeing a much bigger, implacable horde. There is no escape. Resistance is futile.

BEIJING, CHINA – Trolltech® has said that it's Qtopia Phone Edition was awarded Open Source World's Editor's Choice Award for "Best Embedded Linux Platform", continuing to gain widespread recognition and solidify its leading role in the embedded Linux field.

Qtopia Phone is the only independent open software solution for Linux-based devices. It allows designers and manufacturers to develop feature-rich phones and other mobile and wireless devices, while maintaining complete control of branding and user experience. Today, more than 30 vendors are designing, building or shipping mobile phones built with Qtopia and related Trolltech software for embedded Linux, including Motorola, ZTE, and Cellon.

At this time of year it's irresistible to take a look back. It was an interesting and fun year, and it was also a year full of events that left me scratching my head and wondering if any grownups are in charge.

Ideas that grew in the last year and need to grow a lot more in the upcoming one.

In this paper I will try to explain the philosophy behind the Security Enhanced Linux (SE Linux). I will however try to explain the concept with an example but to keep the length readable I will restrain myself to go into much of implementation details for e.g. commands and similar stuff.

[Ed- FYI, You need to download a pdf file -bstadil]

The Power Architecture zone is still fairly new for IBM’s developerWorks. Since its launch in late 2004, it has drawn lots of attention. From the Mac Mini to Xbox 360, see the top ten articles/series of 2005.

China's Guangdong Linux Center (GDLC) and 27 universities last month set up the Guangdong Leadership of Open Source University Promotion Alliance (GDLUPA) to promote Linux in China's universities.

So I am truly psyched about the advent of Performancing, a Firefox extension that integrates a full-featured blog editor right into the browser. Just hit F8 to call up the editing window, whip up a post, and shoot it right off to your Wordpress, Movable Type or Blogger blog. I don't have any blogs running on MT anymore but I set up several Wordpress blogs and an old Blogger blog in all of about 2 minutes -- it's dead easy. Then, you can choose to author in WYSIWYG or source mode, quickly switch over to a live preview and back again, add it to whatever appropriate categories and push the post out to your blog when you're finished. It does what it's supposed to do, simply and well. I absolutely love it.

Get the cameras ready to roll. Firefox is heading for Tinseltown as Mozilla prepares to give its open source browser the star treatment and calls for budding, enlightened filmmakers to start working on a screen treatment.

After announcing last month that it was embarking on its biggest-ever marketing drive, aimed at getting "thousands or tens of thousands" of videos out promoting Firefox 1.5, the company said on Thursday that it was launching a campaign to get the best emerging filmmakers working on the open source trail.

Ok. This is getting a bit out of hand for us right now. We at TechWhack love to use Opera. And we have been following the development of the company since quite sometime. The people at Opera have always claimed to have a specific goal and that goal does not include getting acquired by a bigger company. Some days back the media was mocked for having spread the rumor around that Google had possibly acquired the Norway based Opera Software ASA and now the same rumors are back again but with Microsoft being named as the new owners of the company.

America Online entered the market of free web mail service late but plans to catch-up with the dominating players in the market fast. Microsoft has MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! has Yahoo! Mail, and Google has Gmail. Now AOL is trying to popularize its AOL Web mail service and is testing out a browser toolbar for the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

Happy Holidays! This week, advisories were released for dropbear, nbd, phpbb2, OpenLDAP, Xpdf, cURL, CenterICQ, digikam, apache2, sudo, kernel, netpbm, udev, gpdf, kdegraphics, cups, and perl. The distributors include Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva, and Red Hat.

If you just can't bear to part with Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, or Quicken, but want to make the switch to Linux, relax -- CodeWeavers' CrossOver Office has you covered.

The European Commission turned up the heat yesterday on Microsoft, the world's largest software company, threatening to fine it more than $2 million a day unless it agrees to share more technical information with competitors.

The commission's warning is the latest salvo in its increasingly acrimonious dispute with Microsoft over just what the company must do to comply with a 2004 antitrust ruling by the European Union. But the move also points to the growing gap between the antitrust policies of the United States and Europe.

[Ed: Europe can make this an anti-American issue if it wishes. Whatever it takes to break-up Microsoft works for everyone, especially in the United States. - tadelste]